After three years in Berlin, we feel that the time has come to close shop and let other initiatives fill the space that has been created by all of us throughout this time.

As a way to start this process, we are planning a closing event called How Do You Want To Be Credited? for which we will turn the building over to you -- our public -- for a two day weekend program scheduled for Saturday, August 22nd and Sunday, August 23rd. We are open to all ideas and proposals for presentations (up to 30 minutes in duration), performances, screenings, talks or other actions. Any spaces in The Building can be used.

If you are in Berlin in August and would like to be part of The Building's closing program, please send a description of what you would like to do, to magdalena@e-flux.com by August 1st, and we will consider it for our final weekend.

***

Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14A was originally rented by e-flux in 2006 to house unitednationsplaza project in the wake of the cancellation of Manifesta 6. Following unitednationsplaza, we turned our building into The Building, where we presented numerous screenings and discussions as part of a year long installation of the e-flux video rental project, maintained a public reading room of several thousand books on contemporary art contributed by more than 500 art institutions and individuals from all parts of the world, and commissioned a year long lecture series by Berlin-based critic Jan Verwoert. The Building hosted many other events such as seminars, magazine and book launches, as well as memorable drunken dance nights at our basement bar.

We wish to deeply thank all the people who contributed their ideas and time to The Building.

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Colombian gallerist Juan Gallo, of galeria Alcuadrado, died on Monday.

I was very fortunate to collaborate with him last April in Bogota, when I did an exhibition within an exhibition organized by Alcuadrado and curated by La Central.

Alcuadrado was a visionary gallery, organizing exhibitions which happened outside of the traditional white cube-gallery space and which took place in spaces that were physically and symbolically forgotten.

Tuesday, 28 July 2009

Armando Andrade Tudela presents a group of new works entitled "Torcida". The minimalist objects made of glass, steel and rattan display simple geometric abstractions and interventions into the material. The Spanish adjective torcido/a means "crooked" or "askew," Torcidas is also what the famous and notorious associations of football fans in Brazil are called. The name is based on the verb torcer, which means "to root for" but also "to wring" and "to turn". The supposition is that the behavior of the fans present at the stadium could help the team gather strength to beat the opponent. The title points to a leitmotif of the exhibition, reconciling geometric form variations and forms of social communities.

Four Rattan wicker wall objects play on a recurring theme in Andrade Tudela's works: how seemingly identical formal means and formulations can gain a completely different meaning and grammar when seen within diverse historical and cultural contexts. In the past, Andrade Tudela has frequently dealt with this question in considering the differences, but also the similarities of modernity and its development in Europe and South America. The use of rattan points to an "exotic" or "soft" modernity and to the romantic or colonial notion of an economy based on traditional handcraft and natural products. At the same time, the rattan objects are reminiscent of Op-Art or optical experiments and vouch for Andrade Tudela's abiding interest in forms of expanding perception and the artistic and social experiments of the (counter-) culture of the 1960s.

The series of geometric studies made of glass and MDF created for the exhibition presents variations of a matrix. These objects can be classified somewhere between study, model, and sculpture, filtering and refracting upon the various works of the exhibition as well as the exhibition space. Rather than presenting a finished product, or developing a specific formal language, Andrade Tudela is interested in the character of language and the readability and possibilities of Minimalism and geometric abstraction in its current reception.

Early 2010, Andrade Tudela's first monographic catalogue / artist's book will be released in collaboration with the Berliner Künstlerprogramm / DAAD, the IKON Gallery in Birmingham, and the FRAC Bourgogne in Dijon.

Armando Andrade Tudela (b. 1975 in Lima, Peru) was a guest of the DAAD's Berliner Künstlerprogramm in 2008/09. He studied at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Lima and at the Royal College of Arts in London. In Lima, he was founding member of Espacio La Culpable, an artist run space and art collective. 2004/05, he was a Fellow at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. 2008/09 Andrade Tudela had solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. He has participated in numerous biennials, such as the Lyon Biennale 2007, and in international group exhibitions, such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2007) and the MACBA in Barcelona (2009). Upcoming solo exhibitions in early 2010 include MACBA, Barcelona and FRAC Bourgogne. Armando Andrade Tudela currently lives and works in St. Etienne, France and in Berlin.

Monday, 27 July 2009

In 2003, the German Reichstag (parliament) voted in favor of commissioning a monument to commemorate the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime. Following an international competition in 2006, Berlin-based artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset's proposal was selected for realization.

Elmgreen & Dragset have related the aesthetics of the monument to the Holocaust memorial, which is located directly opposite, on the other side of the street. While Peter Eisenmann’s Holocaust memorial consists of 2711 concrete stelae (cubic slabs), Elmgreen & Dragset have opted for just one single slab, using the same material, color and proportions as Eisenmann's, but enlarging it slightly in its overall size to take on the character of a pavilion. Whilst the concrete 'pavilion' lacks any exits or entrances, the visitor will - through a small, square window - be able to watch an endless film loop of two men embracing in a kiss.

The appropriation of elements borrowed from the Holocaust memorial underlines the similarities in experience of persecution and suffering between the different victim groups, whereas the intimacy of the film loop insists on an identity of its own. Situated on the other side of the street, the work seems to say: 'We are the same, but we are also different.'

The film is shot by cinematographer Robby Müller (Down by Law; Paris, Texas; Dancer in the Dark; Coffee and Cigarettes) and directed by the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (who’s film Festen (Celebration) won the Jury Prize in Cannes, 1998). The kissing scene is shot on 35mm black and white film at the actual location of the memorial before it was erected. Watching the film through the window, one may recognize that the background to the two kissing men is identical to the backdrop of the pavilion itself, with one subtle difference: the change of seasons that will indicate the passage of time.

The memorial seeks in various ways to exchange the monumental with the intimate, aiming to confront the public on a personal level rather than constitute a general spectacle. The tiny window carved out into the concrete block allows only a couple of people to experience the film clip at one time.The viewers will find themselves face to face with the poetic, emotional moment of the two men kissing. The clarity of the scene and the direct depiction that the viewer is met with is crucial to an understanding of the memorial. The acceptance of other sexual orientations is not only a question of obtaining legal rights but also one of acceptance on the street level and in everyday situations.

Every second year for a period of ten years the film clip will be exchanged with other artists’ filmic interpretations of a homosexual intimate encounter. Through this regenerative element, Elmgreen & Dragset's memorial will renew its character over and over again and provide material for ongoing discussions on identity and representational issues.

Saturday, 25 July 2009

Pet Shop Bears welcoming comittee, Open Mike is on the left Justin Case on the right (photo by Gert)

Giant Butt poster!

Rummelsnuff and Bernd Butz perform a extra-special gay accordion set!

Namy Nosratifard, Frank U and Butt magazine editor Jop van Bennekom!

Butt magazine editor fantastic man Gert Jonkers!

Mr. Tom Smith!

Dean Sameshima!

Francesc Ruiz and Manuel Segade!

Ricardo Domeneck, cock cookies and boyfriend!

Eli Sudbrack and Juicy Basso!

Mr. de la Barra and Mr. Waddington shot by Mr. Sameshima!

the opportunity of being a Butt cover boy!

Danny Calvi!

dj of the night Dan Beaumont!

Berlin men on the dancefloor

and peeling ceiling!

The Pet Shop Bears and BUTT magazine are teaming up for another awesome bust-busting kind of party: BEER-B-Q!

This time expect a special live PA from Erobique and his super-special guest, plus London’s own Dalston Super Store Dan Beaumont as well as your hosts, Justin Case and Open Mike. Out in the Biergarten, Rummelsnuff and Bernd Butz perform a extra-special Knopfaccordion set.

Friday 24 July 2009 from 9 PM until late at the Berghain Cuntine and Biergarten in Berlin.

EXHIBITIONS, PROJECTS AND TEXTS BY PLB

ABOUT ME

"At the end of the fifteenth of his 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind' Schiller states a paradox and makes a promise. He declares that ‘Man is only completely human when he plays’, and assures us that this paradox is capable ‘of bearing the whole edifice of the art of the beautiful and of the still more difficult art of living’. We could reformulate this thought as follows: there exists a specific sensory experience—the aesthetic—that holds the promise of both a new world of Art and a new life for individuals and the community. There are different ways of coming to terms with this statement and this promise. You can say that they virtually define the ‘aesthetic illusion’ as a device which merely serves to mask the reality that aesthetic judgement is structured by class domination. In my view that is not the most productive approach..." from
Jacques Rancier, 'The Aesthetic Revolution and its Outcomes', New Left Review 14, April-March 2002

SHORT BIO

Pablo León de la Barra is an exhibition maker, independent curator and researcher. He was born in Mexico City in 1972. León de la Barra has a PhD in History and Theories from the Architectural Association, London. He has curated among other exhibitions ‘To Be Political it Has to Look Nice’ (2003) at apexart and Art in General in New York; ‘PR04 Biennale’ (2004, co-curator) in Puerto Rico; ‘George and Dragon at ICA’ (2005) at the ICA-London; ‘Glory Hole’ (2006) at the Architecture Foundation-London; ‘Sueño de Casa Propia’(2007-2008, in collaboration with Maria Ines Rodriguez) at Centre de Art Contemporaine-Geneve, Casa Encendida-Madrid, Casa del Lago-Mexico City, and Cordoba, Spain; ‘This Is Not America’ at Beta Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009); ‘Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at the CCE in Guatemala (2010); ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, Cerith Wyn Evans at Casa Barragan, Mexico City (2010); ‘Incidents of Mirror Travel in Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); 'Bananas is my Business: the Southamerican Way' at Museu Carmen Miranda, Rio de Janeiro (co-curated with Julieta Gonzalez, 2011); 'MicroclimaS' at Kunsthalle Zurich (2012); 'Esquemas para una Oda Tropical', Rio de Janeiro, 2012; 'Marta 'Che' Traba' at Museo La Ene, Buenos Aires (2012); Novo Museo Tropical at Teoretica, San Jose, Costa Rica (2012); Museu Labirinto / Museum of Unlimited Growth, ArtRio, Rio de Janeiro (2012); The Camino Real Arcades, Lima, Peru (2012). PLB has acted as advisor and/or art curator for the following art fairs: Pinta/London (2010-12), Maco/Mexico (2009-1012), Circa/Puerto Rico (2010), La Otra/Bogota (2009), ArteBA/ Buenos Aires (2012), ArtRio/Rio de Janeiro (2011-2013). León de la Barra has written amongst other publications for: Frog/Paris, PinUp/New York, Purple/Paris, Spike/Austria, Tar/Italy, Wallpaper/London, Celeste/Mexico, Tomo/Mexico, Rufino/Mexico, Ramona/Buenos Aires, Metropolis M/Amsterdam, Numero Cero/Puerto Rico. PLB has also written texts for many artists and exhibition catalogues, lectured internationally and participated in many international symposiums where relevant topics to arts, culture and society have been discussed. PLB was co-director of ‘24-7’ an artists-curatorial collective in London from 2002-2005 and artistic director of ‘Blow de la Barra’ in London from 2005-2008. From 2005 to 2012 he was curator of the White Cubicle Gallery in London, a community art space which he also founded. He is also founder of the Novo Museo Tropical, a museum yet to physically exist somewhere in the tropics and curated the First Bienal Tropical in San Juan Puerto Rico (2011). He is also the publisher of Pablo Internacional Editions and editor of his own blog the Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution. He lives and works between London, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, San Juan, Bogota, Lima, Athens, Beirut...